


Twenty-Five

by TheWormThatTurns



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Minimalism, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2675516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWormThatTurns/pseuds/TheWormThatTurns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was lovely. She was toxic. She was ageless. She was always there. She had answers. She had secrets. She was the death of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty-Five

* * *

 

She was twenty-five and he was seven when she told him a secret that wasn't a secret at all.

  
'You are a wizard, Tom Riddle.'

  
Nothingness carried her away before his very eyes, inches at a time, dust taken by a breeze.

  
* * *

  
She was twenty-five and he was fourteen when she told him an answer to the secret question he hid from everyone.

  
'I can tell you about immortality, if you just wait.'

  
Like smoke, she swirled into nothing and was gone.

  
* * *

  
She was twenty-five and he was sixteen when she asked if he had killed anyone.

  
'Not yet,' he said.

  
Her sad, amber gaze was the last thing to disappear.

  
* * *

  
She was twenty-five and he was twenty-one when she appeared during office hours and she would only stay for seven minutes — he had counted the time before and the time before that — seven and no more.

  
'This is the Ministry of Magic,' she said with surprise.

  
He nearly asked where she expected him to be before he was alone again.

  
* * *

  
She was twenty-five, just like him, when she saw him reading about Horcruxes in his half-empty flat.

  
'Tell me,' he said from where he watched her on the floor, cross-legged and shirtless. 'Tell me how to live forever.'

  
Pointing to the book he held as her own fingers faded, she said, 'Not like that.'

  
* * *

  
She was twenty-five and he was twenty-eight when she found him at the New Year's Eve Ball, surreptitiously smoking cigarettes in the crisp night.

  
'Not all of us have as much as time as you do,' he whispered in her ear.

  
A shiver ran through her just as a laugh did and then she was gone from the balcony of Malfoy Manor.

  
* * *

  
She was twenty-five and he was thirty-four, numbers that weren't divisible by seven — but still added up that way — when she straddled him in bed.

  
Between breaths and kisses, his heart drumming from a curious panic and the new, delicious vulnerability of his naked body against hers, he said, 'How do I live forever?'

  
'Oh, Tom,' she said as something cool and sharp slid between his ribs. Her voice was nearly kind. 'You don't.'

 

* * *

  
\- Finite -


End file.
